"I'm very sorry, sir." Boyd apologized, profusely. "It was all my fault. The plank was steep, and I was forced off my feet. Whenever I'm followed too closely, I lose my head—it's a weakness I have."
The man ceased cursing to dart a sharp glance at him, but he was still too unmanned by his cold immersion to do more than chatter angrily. In the hubbub Emerson led his companion out into the street, where she beheld him shaking with suppressed laughter.
"Boyd," she cried, in a shocked voice, "then it was—you—you might have killed him! Suppose his head had struck a timber!"
"Yes, that would have been too bad!" he declared; then, at the sight of her face, his chuckle changed to a wolfish snarl. "He'll know enough to keep away from me hereafter. I won't play with him the next time."
"Don't! Don't! I never saw you look so. Why, it might have been murder!"
"Well?" He stared at her, curiously.
"I—I didn't think it of you." She shuddered weakly, but he only shrugged his shoulders and said, with a finality that cut off further discussion: "He's a spy! I won't be spied upon."
When Boyd entered his room at the hotel, whither he had gone after leaving Cherry at Hilliard's bank, Big George greeted him excitedly.
"Here's hell to pay. We can't get that barkentine."
"The Margaret? Why not? The charter was all arranged."